


Lean In

by atothej



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: In Vino Veritas, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atothej/pseuds/atothej
Summary: Barton's on the good drugs and Bucky's never been good at resisting a pair a puppy dog eyes at the best of times.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 3
Kudos: 68





	Lean In

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt fill.
> 
> **greetings-fiends:** _Dialogue prompt: "they picked the lock"_

Bucky hauls Barton up four flights of stairs--emphasis on the _hauls_ , given the guy’s legs became next to useless on the way from the taxi to the front entrance--before leaving him to slump against the wall next to the apartment door with a paper target taped on the front. “Where’s your keys?” Bucky asks, his metal hand clenched around Barton’s shoulder to keep him from sliding down into a useless puddle on the floor. The man does not hold his high-dose painkillers well.

Barton blinks at him for a long, drawn-out minute like he’s trying to remember how English works. “Don’t have ‘em,” he finally mumbles as his head thumps back against the peeling plaster.

“What the fuck--where’d you leave ‘em?” Bucky growls incredulously. If the idiot left them back at the clinic, Bucky’s just going to break the damn door down and Barton can worry about it fixing it when he’s not all doped to the gills. He’s already done his due diligence helping Barton duck out of medical AMA-- _ABA,_ for that matter--and that was only because he’s always been a sucker for too-blue eyes.

“Nah, I’mean, no keys,” Barton says, flopping his left hand around with little coordination behind the action. “Don’t use ‘em.”

“How the hell do you expect to get into your fucking apartment then!?” Bucky’s voice may be hitting a particularly shrill register, given the way Barton grimaces and his head falls to the side away from Bucky, but it’s just as likely that something’s breaking through the haze of drugs, even as strong as they are. Barton should _really_ still be in medical. 

This time Barton’s right hand starts flailing up when he deigns to reply with, “Th’window.”

“Window? What _window_?” Bucky asks even as he dreads the answer.

“Intudra window!” Barton chirps with a dopey grin, his eyes bright but still cloudy as he focuses on Bucky for a few shaky seconds before his head lolls over to the other side.

“I’m not dragging your ass up the fire escape to get you to a window,” Bucky grumbles. “Other people come here, I know they do. Do they all use the window too?”

“Nah. They use th’door.”

Barton tends to have a way of getting under Bucky’s skin on a good day--and he has no doubt that it’s entirely intentional then--but spaced out on the good drugs, he really takes it to a whole other level. Bucky breaths in through his mouth and out through his nose with great effort. “So how do _they_ get in then? You just open it for ‘em all the damn time?”

“Nope.” Barton pops that _p_ with far too much enthusiasm for Bucky’s tastes. “They picked the lock.”

“Oh, for _fuck’s sake,_ ” Bucky hisses, rounding back on the door and sliding a knife out from under his sleeve to jimmy the lock with, only as soon as he gets it in place and applies the slightest amount of pressure, the damn thing swings wide open.

“It’s not locked,” Bucky mutters disbelievingly, more to himself than the idiot next to him. But then a second passes, his rage near-about boils over, and he rounds back on said idiot. “Barton, why the ever-loving _fuck_ is your door not locked!?”

“I’as on a mission,” Barton says as he levers one side up off the wall and curves his way around the door jamb, like that’s meant to explain _anything. “_ Lucky ain’t gotta key either. Like, how would’e even use one?”

“Who the hell is Lucky!?” Bucky demands, at the end of his very short allotment of patience.

At which point a dog bounds down from the set of stairs that lead to a loft and barrels into them at the door, jumping up to balance its front paws on Barton’s shoulders as it spastically licks all over Barton’s face--which, _great_ ; now Bucky’s going to have to change out the bandage curling up over Barton’s eye to getting it properly disinfected from all the _dog slobber_.

“Lucky!” Barton exclaims happily even as he starts tipping backward from all the extra weight. Bucky loops an arm over his shoulders to keep the idiot and the mutt from falling over. “Aw, thanks bud! Best dog _ever._ ”

“Yeah, don’t mind me,” Bucky grouses with a scowl. “The guy that dragged your sorry ass across town and up four fucking flights.”

“Aw, Bucky, no!” Barton pivots under Bucky’s arm and suddenly there’s a dog wedged between them, tail thumping against Bucky’s shins, and Barton’s smacking a wet kiss against his cheek. Bucky really hopes the wetness factor isn’t due to the aforementioned dog slobber.

“Thanks, my man,” Barton goes on with a grin, patting a heavily bandaged hand over the spot he just kissed. “Best buddy ever? Naw, wait, tha’s what you’ve got a Steve for. Best _boyfriend_ ever?” Clint’s eyes--fever-bright and drug-hazy and still far too-blue--alight with something Bucky can only think to term _unholy glee._ “Would’ya be my boyfriend? ‘Cause you’d ser’ously be the best. Like, ever-ever. You’re so nice.”

No one’s ever said that about Bucky before--that he’s _nice_. He used to be charming, once upon a time, and clever and a bit of smart ass. These days, he’s mostly just grumpy, though other people tend to interpret that as homicidal for some reason. He is _not_ nice. 

But Barton’s trapped his damn dog between them and looped his arms low around Bucky’s waist, and he’s all doped up on pain meds anyway, so it’s not like he’s going to remember any of this ever even happened. So Bucky leans into it--leans into Lucky and by default Barton, leans into Barton’s fever dream and brushes a kiss just below his ear because the guy’s stupidly tall and that’s as far up as Bucky can reach, leans into a role he’s never going to actually get to play.

“Yeah, that’s me. Best boyfriend ever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at [promptmewinterhawk](https://promptmewinterhawk.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
